"Espionage Management" Part 2. Mikhail Kryzhanovsky, KGB and CIA

Special tools

3.1 Surveillance

Actual espionage is not what you see in the movies and you have absolutely no chance of evasion if a real professional surveillance crew is following you. Why? Because they use multiple methods and mixed methods.

I. Physical surveillance.

3.1.1 Methods

1. “One line” – officers follow the object forming a line behind him and passing him one by one. 2. “Two lines” – officers form two lines on both sides of the street. 3. “Circle” – officers block the area and start searching (used in case they lose the object). 4. “Fork” – one officer (a car) moves in front of the object, another one — behind, other officers (cars) move along parallel streets. 5. “Box” – used when the object enters supermarket, hotel, restaurant. One or two officers follow the object, the others wait for him at the exits. 6. “Demonstration” – officers demonstrate their presence to press the object and lower his activity. 7. “Provocation” – officers attack the object, beat him, steal (secret) documents. Often used to lower his activity if he’s trying to play James Bond. 8. “Outstrip” – officers do not follow the object because they know exactly where he’s going. 9. “Football” – officers pass the object to each other (car — a group — bicyclist — car…) 10. “Movie” – the crew watches the object in stages: first day — to the subway only, second day — from subway to his office, etc. (used abroad). The crew has to have a female member if they are watching a woman (she could use the ladies room for a secret meeting) and members of various ethnicities (white, black, Latino) because the object could go to a specific ethnic area.

3.1.2 If you’re the object and you’ve noticed surveillance:

Don’t rush, move at the same speed. Relax at the nearest bar (and relax the crew). Don’t show how professional you are by trying to disappear, otherwise they could intensify surveillance or even neutralize you (smash your car, beat you up). Postpone the operation you were engaged in . Use a “draught” if you need to see your agent no matter what. Change lanes (if you are driving), stop the car and then drive left or right.

If you don’t see surveillance, that means either there’s no surveillance or you’ve failed in counter-surveillance. Discreetly watch the agent who’s coming to meet you and try to detect any possible surveillance; or you may have been “outstripped.”

3.1.3 Surveillance crew mistakes:

The same crew follows the object all day long. The object “rules” the crew and calculates it (he moves faster — the crew moves faster). A crew member is too noticeable (unusual dress, haircut, disabled parts of the body, too fat or too skinny, too ugly or too pretty). The crew starts to search possible hiding places for espionage evidence right after the object leaves (and he may be watching). The crew leaves traces after a secret search of the object’s house (office). The crew does not report its mistakes or the fact that they’ve lost the object. The crew is not professional (using childish tricks like jumping out of a subway train just before the doors close).

II. Technical Surveillance

1. Visual surveillance. Done through special holes in the ceilings and walls, through the windows from the opposite building (car) or by installing the camera inside the house (you can substitute something, like a clock, for the same thing but “stuffed” with a camera or recorder.) You can use informant as well to watch the object outside his house (especially if you want to do a secret search). 2. Listening devices. The easiest thing is to listen to the object’s phone (record all calls, including those dialed “by mistake”). If you work inside his apartment, make sure you equip the room where he usually talks. Attention: avoid widespread mistake when your agent keeps the listening device on his body; install a miniature device in his clothes or shoes, because the object could try a test and ask the agent to take off his clothes or invite him to the sauna or pool. 3. If you are working abroad, listen 24/7 to local counterintelligence surveillance radiofrequencies. 4. Reading the mail. When you control the object’s mail, remember he could use multiple addresses and PO boxes. Open all the letters with no return address or PO box. Watch when you open the letter — the object could leave a tiny piece of paper, hair, etc. to check if anybody opened the letter. Analyze the text carefully — there could be a cipher or the words with double meaning (jargon), especially when you read mafia mail. 5. Combination of above-mentioned methods

3.2 Murders:

3.2.1 Regular

Shooting, explosives or poison (cyanides, curare). Use a sniper or a “mouse” car (loaded with explosives and parked on the object’s route) if access to the object is impossible because of high security. Anyway, the murder is obvious and investigation is inevitable.

General scheme. The best thing to do is to recruit or ” install” somebody with access to the object’s security system and get information on his schedule (plus health and habits), places where he likes to relax. Try to gain access to his phone. Then prepare the plan and train three groups: surveillance (with optics and radios), action (includes snipers, explosives technicians or staged accidents specialists), and security (these people neutralize bodyguards, witnesses and other people who could interrupt the action; they complete the action if the action group fails; and they can neutralize the action group later, if planned so; they “cover” the safe retreat of action group and “cut” the chase). For some operations you can modify the ammunition to make it more deadly – hollow cuts in the tip of the bullets will cause the lead to fragment upon impact, making a huge exit hole. You reach same effect using bullets with a drop of mercury in a hollow tip and you can also coat bullets with arsenic or cyanide. Use depleted, non-radioactive uranium bullets (uranium is much heavier than lead – it can be used to make a bullet with a smaller slug and a larger portion of explosive). Teflon bullets are good because with Teflon’s antifriction characteristics they pierce bullet proof vests.

3.2.2 Complex

Staged accidents (suicides, catastrophes, drowning or fall, robbery or rape followed by murder, technical accident (fire, electricity, gas), drugs, weapons, poison, explosives misuse. Also, staged natural death (stroke, heart attack, chronic illness as a result of special technical devices like irradiation). Attention: you can conceal injection sites by choosing areas that could not be easily detected, such as fingernails or toenails. For staged accidents you can use acetone (absorption of large quantities via either the respiratory or gastrointestinal tract results in decreased respiration, stupor and death); carbon monoxide — acetylene gas, illuminating gas (coal gas), automobile gas, furnace gas; or a simple novocaine + coffee combination. In some cases nonbacterial food poisoning is suitable. It can occur following the ingestion of (1) certain species of mushrooms such as Amanita Muscaria, which contains the toxic alkaloid muscarine, and Amanita Phalloides, which contains phalloidin or other toxins, (2) immature or sprouting potatoes, the active poison of which is colanin, (3) mussels — death may occur as a result of respiratory failure, (4) grain, especially rye, which has become contaminated with the ergot fungus, Claviceps Purpurea. Ergot contains a number of active principles including ergotoxin, tyramine and ergamin (histamine), (5) fruits sprayed with salts of lead or arsenic and food stored in cadmium-lined containers. Staged botulism is effective, too. It’s an acute intoxication manifested by neuromuscular disturbances, following ingestion of food containing a toxin, elaborated by Clostridium botulinum, a common soil bacillus. The disease is always caused by the ingestion of improperly preserved food, usually a home-canned product, in which the toxin has been produced during the growth of the causative organism. The spores of Clostridium botulinum are highly resistant to heat; in water they require exposure for 5 hours at 212°F to ensure their death. The preserved food wherein the toxin is most commonly found are string beans, corn, spinach, olives, beets, asparagus, sea food, pork products and beef. The mortality of botulism may be as high as 65 per cent. Most of the fatal cases die between the 2nd and 9th days following the ingestion of the toxin. Death usually results from respiratory paralysis or from secondary bronchopneumonia. In those who survive, the disease usually reaches its height in the first days of illness. Recovery is characteristically very slow and residual weakness of the ocular muscles may persist for many months. Some cases demand usage of poisons, both organic — like concentrated nicotine that enters the body through skin or concentrated inhalation of horseradish, garlic or rotten meat, which causes breathing paralysis; poisons extracted from rattlesnake, cobra, stonefish, and inorganic — arsenic, thallium, cyanides. Teflon can generate a deadly methane gas; or carbon tetrachloride can be boiled or burnt so that it gives off lethal phosgene gas. Any poison could be mixed with an agent that enters the body through the skin and takes anything with it. Against terrorists, use their own weapons — high and low explosives. High explosives include TNT (trinitrotoluene), nitroglycerine, dynamite, plastique. Nitroglycerine is a mix of nitric acid (made by mixing saltpeter, potassium nitrate and sulfuric acid, then heating them and condensing the fumes), pure sulfuric acid and glycerin. TNT (nitric acid, sulfuric acid, toluene) is far more stable. Plastique is composed of cyclotrimethylene trinitramine, isomethylene and motor oil. Low explosives – gasoline, saltpeter, picric acid, acetone peroxide, urea nitrate. Many ingredients like gasoline, paraffin naphtha, acetone, swimming-pool cleaner, high-nitrogen fertilizer are generally available. Saltpeter is extracted from any soil with old decayed animal or vegetable matter – pour boiling water through, filter the water through wood ash, boil solution, remove salt crystals and leave the remaining solution to evaporate until only the potassium nitrate (saltpeter) crystals are left. Mixed with sulfur, lampblack and sawdust it becomes a black powder. Urea nitrate involves boiling a large quantity of urine down to one-tenth of its volume, mixing that with nitric acid and filtering for the urea nitrate crystals. Like saltpeter, these crystals are used in pipe bombs. Picric acid is used as explosive or as a booster for high explosives. Very easy thing to make is nitrogen tri-iodide — filter ammonia through iodine crystals and when the resulting brown sludge dries, it will explode on contact. Fertilizer mixed with fuel oil can be used in a pipe bomb. A 5-pound bag of flour used with a small amount of low explosive and an incendiary such as aluminum powder can create a dust explosion big enough to demolish a room. Swimming pool cleaner is used in pipe charges. Bleach, acetone and sulfuric acid combined can form a primary explosive. The explosive substance from a commercial detonating product can be mixed with acetone and mineral oil — then a book or newspaper is soaked in the solution, and dried, to create a powerful explosive that can be detonated with a blasting cap. Use incendiaries (firebombs) like a Molotov cocktail — a mixture of gasoline and oil in a corked bottle with a gasoline-soaked rug as a fuse. Similar is the fire bottle with mixture of gasoline and sulfuric acid. Light bulbs can be booby trapped with explosives. Letter and parcel bombs can be made with friction-sensitive tabs.

3.3 Coup d’etat

Coups, like war, are one of the most violent tools of special services and one could be artificially staged in a target country by “feeding” and “pushing” the political opposition or by using VIP agents in the government. Most coups are “Bureaucratic,” and entail mainly a change of leader, usually by person #2. That person might be the trigger or might be induced to practice “passive sabotage” and allow certain others to take over. It is also an example of political engineering. Coups usually use the power of the existing government for its own takeover.

Conditions for a successful coup: -the army is supportive or at least neutral (a coup usually involves control of some active -portion of the military while neutralizing the remainder of the armed services) -the leader is out of town (vacation, visit abroad) or is ill -a political or economic crisis. -opponents fail to dislodge the plotters, allowing them to consolidate their position, obtain the surrender or acquiescence of the populace, and claim legitimacy

3.3.1 Military Coup

Changing a civilian government to a military one, usually in developing countries. Conditions: a long-term political and economic crisis that threatens national security and the unity of the country. Military chief(s) eventually let the people elect a civilian president and form a civilian government after “re-construction” of political and economic systems. They usually leave for themselves the right to control further political process. A good example is the attempt of anti-Nazi officers to assassinate Hitler in a coup. On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg brought a bomd-laden suitcase into a briefing room where Hitler was holding a meeting. The bomb exploded and several persons were killed. Hitler ws wounded, but his life was saved when the suitcase was unwittingly moved away by someone. Hitler was shielded from the blast by the conference table, leaving him with minor injuries. Subsequently about 5,000 people were arrested by the Gestapo and about 200,including Stauffenberg, were executed in connection with attempt, some on the very same day (which means that Himmler was involved and knew perfectly well about the coup).

3.3.2 “Democratic” Coup

A democratic coup would be a change of the government by the most aggressive (nationalistic) political party. Conditions: -artificial or actual government crisis -mass anti-government propaganda -organized “democratic” movement all over the country -provoked mass protests (10,000 particiapants and up) and civil disobedience actions To provoke a mass anti-government meeting you have to bring to the place well-trained group of agitators (bring as many as you can), and they will inevitably attract an equal number of curious persons who seek adventures and emotions, as well as those unhappy with the government (unemployed people, young and old, are usually very supportive). Arrange transportation of the participants to take them to meeting places in private or public vehicles. Design placards, flags and banners with different radical slogans or key words; prepare flyers,pamphlets (with instructions for the participants), posters and signs (to make the concentration more noticeable). It’s good if you place a surveillance team on the top floors of the nearby buildings – they will report any changes in the event; have also messengers to transmit your orders.Remember, if you clash with police and military and a participant(s) is being killed, the conflict inflames right away. Your people can also infiltrate the spontaneous anti-government meeting and turn it ito a mass radical demonstration with fights and incidents. Key agitators (with security attached to them) have to be dispersed and stand by placards, signs, lampposts; they have to avoid places of disturbances, once they have provoked them. -the leader of the meeting must be protected by a ring of bodyguards (they protect him from police or help him to escape). -government buildings must be “covered” by a blockade “Democratic” nationalistic coup in Ukraine (2004), so-called “orange revolution”. Scenario: acts of civil disobedience, strkes, sit-ins (in the central square), agressive propaganda, mass demands to revote the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election.

3.3.3 Revolution

A change of government and political and economic systems by political gangsters, usually fed, pushed, incited, and possibly funded and equipped by the secret services of another country. (Even the American Revolution would not have succeeded without French military advisors and financial support.) Government buildings are blockaded, the government isolated, all communications and transportation systems captured, government media closed, new government formed.Conditions: -political and economic crisis -mass anti-government propaganda (in the army too)-provoked mass protests and civil disobedience actions -terror and urban guerillas

3.3.4 Self-coup

The current government assumes extraordinary powers not allowed by the legislation. It often happens when the president is democratically elected, but later takes control of the legislative and judicial powers.